THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE
From "The Life of Ferdinand Magellan," by F. ,I. H. Guillemard
ONE OF THE PENINSULA'S BUSIEST PORTS OF THE 1490'S
Few explorers have been thrust into such a seaman's school as that afforded Magellan when
he and hundreds of other lads from the farms and pastures thronged to Lisbon (see, also, illus
tration, page 698). De Bry's old print gives an idea of the craft of the circumnavigator's time,
though no exact description of his own fleet is extant (see text, page 713).
tiny bronze images and mighty bronze
cannon, and among the last mentioned a
magnificent piece the Sultan had received
from the opulent Zamorin of Calicut.
Beyond all that, Malacca itself was the
most dazzling jewel in Portugal's eastern
crown. Its harbor, where rode the ships
of countless oriental potentates and peo
ples, was the golden vessel wherein the
Spice Islands, the Philippines, even fabu
lous Cathay, poured their riches, to trickle
out again toward India, Egypt, the Suez,
and finally to filter through their costly
ways to Mediterranean ports (page 706).
The conquest of Malacca and sure
knowledge that Cathay and the Indies were
directly accessible constituted a sore temp
tation to sail eastward with the entire
Portuguese fleet. But the astute Albu
querque, always mindful that Portugal's
spice line depended upon sure control of
strategic points along the way, returned to
Goa, leaving three galleons to reconnoiter
the promised land of fragrant spices.
Captain of one of these ships, according
to one chronicle, was Ferdinand Magel
lan. More certainly and more important,
even from Magellan's standpoint, another
ship was commanded by his friend, Fran
cisco Serrao.
The ships skirted northern Java and
Madoera (Madura), sighted the Celebes,
sailed into the Banda Sea, touched at
Boeroe, and took on cloves and nutmegs at
Amboina and Banda. By that time they
were too heavily laden to visit Ternate, so
they turned back for Malacca.
MAGELLAN'S FRIEND OUTWITS PIRATES
Off a tiny island southwest of the Ban
das, Serrao's ship was wrecked, broken up
on a deserted island, a rendezvous for
pirates, where it looked as if the refugees
faced certain death, if not from hunger
and thirst, from corsairs. But they es
caped, and Serrao later became adviser
to the powerful King of Ternate, as did
Marco Polo at the court of Kublai Khan.*
From there he wrote voluminous letters to
Magellan in Lisbon, describing the wealth
and wonders of eastern lands, "larger and
* See, also, "The World's Greatest Overland
Explorer," by J. R. Hildebrand, in the NATIONAL
GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE for November, 1928.
704